Are you there God?

My favorite of the newest No Star designs.

Ball Buster

Analog Retirement

Cute tee from Busted

To my fellow "New Customers" of JP Morgan Chase

Hood River

Some pics that I just got around to doing anything with, from an afternoon drive to Hood River over Labor Day Weekend.

Shawnee Theatre

I spent what seems like almost all my free time in high school in this place. I actually hung that sign which covered over the more "rustic" old wooden sign. I think that was the summer of '95?
Glad that they're still going strong. Shawnee is such a weird yet awesome asset in a town of 2,500. Bloomfield is hardly a complete cultural wasteland, but summer stock ˈthē-ˌā-tər in Bloomfield? Who would've thunk?
John Belushi was here for the summer season in 1967, straight out of high school.
The popular story around town is that Belushi took his first toke in Bloomfield, "it was the beginning of the end," we always joked. "He was pretty square until he spent a summer in the sticks." After his time served in Greene County, he was off to other things, and then Second City in Chicago, and then that late night show he did in New York, but "if we hadn't introduced him to the marijuana in the first place, he might still be with us today..."

Parked on the Portland Streets

One of the first things I noticed when I moved to Portland was the amount of weird old cars still on the road here. Things like Datsun 210's and 1976 Chevy trucks that have been mostly digested by rock salt back in Indiana are still plentiful here on the streets of the Rose City. Inspired by the Down on the Street photos on Jalopnik, this is my first post of some random neat old stuff parked around my 'hood.

This Ford dumptruck was parked on the street below my friend's apartment for months. I noticed the tow warning sticker and got a few pics of it before it went away to Impound Land.

I used to sit in the 3rd story window and daydream about all the things I could haul around in this awesome old dump truck.

This Buick Regal, possibly a '75? A Canadian specimen, with BC plates, captured at a trailhead in the Gorge. My grandparents had a red '74 that almost ended up in my hands. It looked almost like this one, only with a meaner, pointer grille. Now I'm kinda glad it didn't end up with me, but it would've been awesome when I was 20 and the price of gas was negligible.

This Powerwagon is still kickin' it as a daily driver, I even see it being used for things that you can only do with a pick-up truck quite often. She's kinda loud, but she gets the job done...

Logo

I'm not the first to find a similarity between these two logos. The first time I saw John McCain's logo on one of his ads, I immediately thought "mmm... french fries."

The typeface used in the John McCain logo is Optima, Straightforward, plain, and just about as ho-hum middle of the road as it comes as far as text goes.
Not so coincidentally, this is the same typeface used on Maya Lin's Vietnam Memorial. More discussion here.
I think I'd be more persuaded if they had used that cool retro McCain Frozen Foods font. That funky star that dots the "i" is like a future that will never be. Let's hope the same will come to be said about that other McCain star...

Surviving the New Depression

Watch them all. Found at Schadenfreude

Surviving the New Depression: Tip #12 from Steve Delahoyde on Vimeo.


Surviving the New Depression: Tip #16 from Steve Delahoyde on Vimeo.

Dislocation

Update - The video was promptly taken down from all the usual sources, but it is still available here.

Hungarian weightlifter Janos Baranyai dislocates his elbow.
Use care, the video is pretty nasty, but still not as bad as this still image of the infamous "blown 'O' ring." (Use even more care with that picture. Don't click that link in mixed company, unless you really want to bother someone for the rest of the day, or risk losing your job.)

I love the officially branded "Beijing 2008 Nothing to See Here" shields that come out about ten seconds after he falls down. If you can't see the writhing, everything is alright...

Borgnine

I believe this video shows the precise moment that a new euphemism for masturbation was born.
If only Borgnine wasn't such a funny word in the first place.



(Probably the only Fox News Video link you'll ever see here.)

Guilty Pleasure

So it was Friday after work, 102 degrees, and I didn't want to cook. So I headed to Lloyd Center to wait out the heat of the day and get some mall food court dinner. Luckily the Lloyd Center has my second favorite fast food pleasure - Arbys.

And since it was payday, I sprung for the mozzarella stix as a special treat.

Lloyd Center is an especially awesome air conditioned oasis on a dreadfully hot day in a mostly un-conditioned city. You can catch a movie, browse Barnes & Noble, watch kids ice skate, slurp an Orange Julius, and just people-watch. Other than my regular Arby's cravings, hot ass summer days are about the only time I voluntarily head to the mall.

Smog = Pretty Sunset

Portland on a hazy day in 1960.

One of about a gazillion awesome photos in the Charles W. Cushman Photograph Collection.
Search for your own city, and also search for New York. There's a whole lot of awesome color shots of the city from 1941. Like this one.



And this one of Indy, 1963.

Low Brow Crock Pot Roast

Its hot. I'm struggling to keep the apartment under 80. It was supposed to be even warmer today but the predictions didn't pan out. I figured this was the perfect day to make a crock pot meal. It doesn't heat the house too much, and although a little heavier of a meal than I really needed to eat tonight, it was a success.
I almost lost my favorite crock pot roast recipe, it was written on a tiny piece of paper that was once tucked into a cookbook. It was no longer there.
I finally found it after taking all the cookbooks out of the cookbook cabinet, it was stuck to the back of the cupboard.
I decided to post the recipe here so I don't have to rely on my little piece of paper anymore.
Try it out sometime if you have a crock-pot. Perfect in the winter, tasty in the summer too.
I like it best with a big chunk of beef roast, but tonight I used pork shoulder because it was available on the cheap this week. The roast should be around 3-4 pounds, or pretty much fill the whole crock pot.
Mix all of the following together in the pot the night before and refrigerate it so all you have to do in the morning before you go to work is turn it on. The marinading isn't mandatory, its just convenient. You can throw it all together and start cooking straight away if you want and get the same results.

Here's the juice:
Mix up in the crock pot
1 Packet of brown gravy mix (Hain makes my favorite one) and
1/2 cup of water.
Stir it up with a whisk until all the powder dissolves.
Then add
1/4 cup of fine tomato ketchup
1/4 cup of "Three Buck Chuck" Shiraz (or your favorite inexpensive full-bodied red wine)
2 tbsp of dijon mustard
1 tbsp of Worcestershire Sauce
1/8 tsp of garlic powder (or a couple cloves of crushed garlic if you feel so inclined)
Some little carrots and potatoes if you want

Salt and pepper the meat to your liking, remembering that there's quite a bit of sodium in that juice you're getting ready to dunk the meat into for the next few hours, so go easy on the salt. Refrigerate overnight if that works out best for you.
Cook on Low for 7-9 hours, or until you stick a fork into the meat and it all falls apart.

Enjoy.

*Not my crock pot by the way, just a picture borrowed from abmatic's photostream. However Mom still uses her green one that looks just like that one.